


here, you love her.

by vasnormandy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, but fuck it, i don't know if i'm actually going to finish this before the end of february, things you said
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5983057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasnormandy/pseuds/vasnormandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a mountain is moving somewhere inside you, and her handprints are all over it. here. here. here, you love her. || snapshots of allison and lydia, based on the "things you said" prompt list. a project for femslash february.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. things you said at 1 am

you have come and made  
my dreams smaller, narrower  
filled them with sugar and  
your body humming in the  
same room as mine.

                         -[caitlyn siehl, _chocolate chip pancakes_](http://alonesomes.tumblr.com/post/127763175641/you-are-making-breakfast-in-every-dream-that-i)

 

\---

 

"allison! allison, allison, help - allison, i'm going to die, please, help -"

a furrow forms between her brows - concentration, irritation? "i'm a little busy over here."

"allison, pleeeeeeaaa- crap!" over the call, she can hear muffled clicking as stiles furiously mashes buttons. "allison, i'm dead! revive me, revive me, revive me, pleeeeeaaaase -"

"get scott to do it," she replies evenly.

"i'm dead," scott contributes, unhelpfully.

"scott's dead!" stiles exclaims. "c'mon, allison, please - help me, allison argent, you're my only h- nooooooo, too late, i'm dead. i'm back at the start of the area."

"hi."

"hi, scott."

"both of you need to get back up here," allison instructs, moving her character to take cover behind a pillar. "i'm out of rockets."

"if you wanted help, maybe you shouldn't ha-"

"we're on our way," scott interjects. "hold out for just a minute."

she moves out from behind the pillar for a moment, just to fire a few shots, chip away at the boss's health - and then, at precisely the wrong moment, the controller is yanked from her hands. she sputters in protest, looks wildly up at the displeased culprit as her exposed character is riddled with gunfire.

she thinks she dies just as scott and stiles reach her. "allison, what happened?" comes scott's confused inquiry in the party call. "you weren't moving."

"lag?" stiles offers.

"lydia!" it is half a correction and half an exclamation, and her friend offers a self-satisfied smirk as she sets the controller down on allison's dresser.

"wait, lydia's there?" there's a new note of interest in stiles' voice. "hi, lydia!"

"hey, lydia," scott says pleasantly.

"hi," she responds shortly. "allison, can i talk to you?"

"mhm," allison hums, and lydia takes her by the hand and pulls her from her chair and across the room.

"allison," she says. "we are on break. it is a saturday. i did not come over to watch you play video games with scott and stiles. we're going out."

a frown draws creases in allison's face. "it's one in the morning. lydia, i'm already in my pajamas."

"that's fine," she quips, her voice rising cheerfully. "we can find you something to wear. there's this club i want to try, i've got fake IDs in the car, we can -" 

"hang on." there is something off in lydia's voice - she is too energized, too cheered, too much like she used to act all of the time. allison walks back to the television, picks up the controller as she passes it. "guys? you doing okay?"

"allison!" stiles yells desperately. "respawn!"

"i can't, i have to go."

"we're dying!"

"is everything okay?" scott questions - gently probing, concerned, as always.

"yeah," she says, "fine. i'll talk to you guys later, okay?"

"allisoooooonnnn," stiles laments.

"see you later," scott says. "good night!"

"night," she responds, and ends the call, and exits the game, and turns off the television. now, free of boys and games and distractions, she turns to lydia, crosses her arms. "okay. what's wrong?"

"what? nothing's wrong." lydia shrugs it off, but her movements are exaggerated, her voice edging into a higher octave. "why does something have to be wrong?"

"something's wrong. lydia -" she walks to her, tilts her head, reaches out to take both of her hands. "come on."

lydia sighs, seems to deflate, and in defeat admits, "jackson called."

"oh." she draws a shot breath. "are you okay? what did he -"

"nothing. nothing. he just wanted to catch up." she shrugs. "it's fine. i'm fine. i just want to be with my best friend."

allison nods, moves a hand up lydia's arm to her shoulder. "lydia - you know if you want company, or someone to talk to, you can just ask. you don't have to drag me out to parties in the middle of the night. i'm always here for you. okay?"

she ducks her head, offers a small nod. "i - yeah."

"good." she smiles, squeezes lydia's shoulder. "okay. pick a movie. pajamas are in my bottom drawer. i'm going to go make popcorn."

"but -"

"come on. this'll be good for you."

lydia sighs. "fine."

allison hugs her quickly, pulls away to move towards the door. "oh, um - not the notebook?"

"love actually?"

"that'd be alright."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will i finish this before the end of february? no. will i finish this at all? certainly going to try.


	2. things you said through your teeth

lydia’s house is closest. her mother shouldn’t be home – she remembers hearing about something going on at the school tonight, something with the board, something ms. martin would attend. as she stumbles up the driveway she crosses her fingers in her mind, prays that lydia is home, and that she is alone.

she knocks with the hand she has not been holding herself together with, so she will not leave blood on the door.

it swings open after a very long minute – in the dark of the evening lydia looks so beautiful, silhouetted against the warm glow from the doorway. she must have been working out – her hair is pulled up messily, she wears exercise clothes that cling to her rounded shape, her cheeks are flushed and pink. she is holding an open water bottle, lifted close to her mouth. when she sees what her doorstep holds, it slips from her hand, hits the floor. its contents soak slowly into the carpet.

“oh my god,” she exclaims. “oh, my god, allison –”

“hi,” she mumbles.

“you’re bleeding.”

“got shot.”

lydia’s hand covers her mouth. “oh, my g- get inside. come on.” she steps out of the doorway, and allison climbs across the threshold, into the warmth and the light. “come on.” she is at her side, her arm goes around her back – allison drapes hers over lydia’s shoulders, and she is guided gently up the stairs into a bathroom.

“come on,” lydia coaxes again as she helps her lower herself to sit atop the closed toilet seat; she lets her go, hurries to the medicine cabinet and throws it open. allison slowly peels off her coat and then her sweater – her side screams at the smallest movement, so she grits her teeth to keep from crying out. silently, she curses herself for layering. her sweater is loose enough for her to escape from, but her attempt to remove the camisole underneath nearly elicits a cry of pain that she barely manages to stifle.

“lydia,” she says, and her voice is rough and strained. her friend is before her in an instant, and she swallows down her pride, quietly admits through her teeth, “i can’t get it off.”

lydia’s face softens; she nods. “okay. okay, um – lift your arms.”

she does, bites down harder to keep the pain from rising. lydia gently slides her fingers under the hem of the tank and begins to roll upward, separating fabric from skin made sticky with blood and sweat. allison winces visibly as she peels it from the wound, makes a muffled sound of pain in spite of all her efforts to stay silent, and lydia whispers, “sorry, sorry, sorry.” finally she pulls the tank free over allison’s head, tosses it to the side, and allison breathes a quiet sigh of relief. this is not how she wanted lydia to undress her.

the thought surprises her. does she want lydia to undress her?

lydia kneels to peer at the wound. “it doesn’t look too bad,” she says, “just a graze,” but allison can hear the way worry clings to her voice, making it light and breathy and high. “i’m guessing the hospital is out of the question?”

with her head tilted back, her breaths labored, allison nods. “they report –”

“gunshot wounds to the police. i know. but melissa –”

“i can’t ask her to do that.”

“allison –”

“she may not even be on staff.”

lydia sighs. “okay.” she gets to her feet, goes back to the sink to grab a damp cloth she’d prepared earlier. she holds it out. “here. keep pressure on it. i’ll be right back.” there is something in her face besides worry.

allison takes the cloth, presses it to her side, and lydia pulls her phone from her pocket as she leaves the room, leaves allison alone for the moment with a cloth and pain and the feeling, lingering, of soft fingers gently tracing her sides, lifting her shirt. they were warm against the chilled expanse of her skin, or else she would have shuddered.

she lets her head drop back, sucks in a breath, grits her teeth. in her mind there is little but red pain and lydia, her worried face, the gleam of sweat on her chest above the scoop collar of her sports bra – the way warmth seemed to spread from everywhere her fingers touched her skin – what was that look on her face before she left, as she fastened her eyes briefly on her best friend, shot and bleeding, now half naked in her bathroom?

“i called scott,” lydia says as she comes back through the door. “he’s grabbing some of his mom’s things and coming over.”

“lydia –”

“there’s only so much i can do,” she interrupts. “and he has steadier hands than me. let me see it.”

allison obligingly reveals the wound again, and lydia again goes to kneel before her; her hand covers allison’s for just a moment as she takes the cloth from her. “you’ll be alright,” she says, and sounds more assured of it this time. she returns the cloth to the wound, holds it there herself. allison winces as the reapplied pressure, grits her teeth again.

“don’t know what i’d do without you,” she gets out.

lydia looks down. “you’d manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter one was a warm up. now things get gay.


	3. things you said too quietly

lydia sits on the edge of her best friend’s bed, her hands flat on the mattress. allison, across the room, rifles through a cardboard box; her back is to lydia, she has stripped down to her underwear, and lydia has somehow found herself fixated on her shoulder blades, the way they shift under her skin – the rippling of her back, powerful muscles working in tandem. her chest is tight, there is heat in her throat – and she crosses her legs in her short, short skirt in a pose that has been known to drive boys out of their minds – and yet allison has undressed not for her, but as casually as she does in the locker room before gym. it’s as though she doesn’t even see her.

“oh! here!” allison pulls several blurs of fabric from the box, puts two on top of her dresser – takes the third, a pair of jeans, and shimmies into them. these are the clothes she bought in france over the summer, and now that she is home, lydia has insisted on seeing them modeled. she pulls on a sweater over her head, loosely draped with a wide neck, asymmetric vertical stripes in a medley of knit earth tones. next a scarf, gray and crinkled, knotted around her neck. “what do you think?” she asks eagerly, spreading her arms to the sides.

_i think you are beautiful,_ lydia wants to say. _i think your hair frames your face like a portrait to a painting, i think it looks so lovely short that i cannot bring myself to miss your longer curls, or mourn the loss of fantasies of tangling my fingers in them; i think you could wear a paper bag and i still would not be able to take my eyes off of you._ but she forces herself to press her lips into a line, tilt her head, offer a critical hum.

allison drops her arms to her sides and sighs. “lydia.”

she shrugs. “the scarf and the sweater don’t go!” she says, bounding to her feet and strutting across to allison. “let me.”

quickly, she unwinds the offending accessory from allison’s neck, tosses it onto the top of her dresser, and delves into the box of clothes. there is no shortage of scarves, they love the things in europe, and eventually she finds a suitable one. the second she discovers it she is in love with it: deep green, silky, shimmering, beautiful. smiling, she pulls it free, holds it out to compare against the sweater – yes, this’ll do. she shakes it insistently in front of allison. “this one.”

“that one’s yours,” she says.

lydia stops. “i’m sorry?”

“it’s for you,” allison repeats with a smile. “it made me think of you.”

she looks down at the length of fabric in her hands – it is so lovely, catching the light and throwing it off like glistening water, its shade of dark, pure green almost aquatic, like the kelp forest depths of an ocean. it will go well with her hair. she pulls it to her chest and holds it there, silk clenched in loose fists, like it is allison and not her gift which she holds against her heart. “you shouldn’t have,” she says.

allison’s smile widens, and lydia’s chest constricts even further. “i was there for the whole summer,” she replies. “i couldn’t just not get you anything. there’s a dress in there for you, too. i’ll dig it out.”

“later,” lydia says, before she can move. she draws a long breath, tries to calm her heart, to clear her throat. “show me the rest of what you bought for yourself first.”

allison nods, and pulls the sweater off over her head as lydia returns to her spot on the bed. “so,” she says as she returns to the box of clothes, goes rifling once again. “you still haven’t told me if you’re seeing anyone new.”

“me?”

“yes, you.” she laughs. “anyone i should know about?”

lydia hums. “meh. i tried a few. none of them stuck.”

“no one you’ve got your eye on?” she asks. she has found a small sundress and is zipping herself into it – her eyes are locked on her own reflection in her closet mirror, and lydia’s are locked on the lace of her bra where the zipper has not reached, on the curves the bodice tightly hugs, on the gentle swoop of brown hair.

“just you,” she says, before she can think it through long enough to decide not to say anything at all. her voice comes out as barely a breath.

“hmm?”

she did not hear. lydia feels relief and disappointment rise parallel in her.

“i said no,” she quips, letting just a trace of annoyance slip into her voice – allison knows she hates to repeat herself. “i think i’m going to take a break from boyfriends for a while. here, let me.” she gets up and walks to her again, takes between her index and thumb the zipper allison has been struggling with. when she pulls it up her fingers pad against the skin of allison’s back, and she lets them linger there – just for the barest moment, not enough.


	4. things you said over the phone

lydia is a light sleeper.

she keeps her phone beside her bed, plugged in and charging. she leaves it on silent most of the time, but she is a light sleeper, and its frantic buzzing is enough to rouse her. she reaches out half-blindly, gropes for the source of the obnoxious vibration, and yanks it from its charger cord to where she can see the face on the screen – allison.

were it anyone else she would no doubt have been irritated at having been woken up, likely would not have answered at all, but the idea of passing up an opportunity to hear allison’s voice is beyond absurd. she accepts the call, lifts the phone to her ear.

“hello?” she greets, groggily.

“lydia?” it is a question, not a greeting.

lydia hums, arches her back to stretch. “yep.”

“did i wake you?”

“yeah.”

“shit. sorry.” her voice is soft, breathy through the receiver. “i’ll just go.”

“no – allison.” lydia pushes herself up in bed, sits back against the headboard. “what’s up?”

a pause. then – “i need help.”

the worst case scenarios begin instantly – is she alright, is someone after her, is she stranded somewhere, is she hurt? is it something supernatural, is she in danger – she’s whispering, is she hiding? the alpha pack, the sacrifices, what could have happened – lydia can feel her heart rate rising, but she keeps her voice steady, asks, “what’s wrong?”

“i don’t understand confidence intervals.”

she releases a breath, a forceful gust of air expelled from her lungs; slowly she can feel panic abating. “allison,” she says, “don’t scare me like that.”

“oh, god. sorry. i wasn’t thinking –”

“it’s okay,” she interjects. “you – did you wait until now to start studying?” the silence is answer enough. she looks at her clock and gives an exasperated sigh. “2 AM, allison? for a test tomorrow morning?”

“i had a busy day!” allison exclaims. “can you help me?”

she draws a breath – inhale, exhale – blinks the sleep out of her eyes. okay, lydia. wake your brain up. confidence intervals. you know how to do those. “yeah. sure. fine.”

“are you sure? if you need to go back to sleep –”

“i’m sure,” she interrupts. “what are you having trouble with?”

“t-star,” allison admits sheepishly.

lydia nods. “it’s just z-star for means. don’t worry about why it’s different. doesn’t matter.”

“do you find it the same way?”

“yeah, but it changes. z-star doesn’t. you – on your calculator, i-n-v-T. area in the tails and the degrees of freedom.”

“oh.” there’s a shift – allison moving to hold the phone up with her shoulder, to free her hands, lydia would guess – and then a long silence, and then, “oh!”

“make sense?”

“yes!”

lydia holds the phone to her ear as she slides down in her bed again, nestles back into the dip in her mattress. “you got it?”

“yes! i think. wait.” she stops for a moment. “remind me what Sx is.”

“s’just the standard deviation.”

“standard deviation is that weird curly O.”

“standard error. same thing. well –” she pauses, hums. “allison, did you pay attention in class during this unit? at all?”

a silence. “i was a little distracted.”

“by what? isaac?” her voice has adopted a teasing tone, but she bites down hard on her lip – _say no, please say no, he is not good enough for you. no one is good enough for you, save maybe scott. if you don’t want me, it should at least be scott._

“no.” oh, good. “it’s – the things we’ve been seeing. scott and stiles and i.”

oh. lydia turns onto her back, grips the phone tighter. “god, allison – at school?”

“sometimes.”

“i had no idea.”

“i’m trying to get better at – controlling it,” she says, and over the line lydia can hear a note of distress crawling into her friend’s voice. “in the woods, i almost ki- i need to control it. i don’t want to hurt anyone. but it’s getting worse.”

“we’ll figure it out.” it is a quiet promise, but a promise all the same. “we’ll fix this.”

“i know.” she inhales deeply. “you should get some rest.”

“so should you.”

“i will. soon.”

“allison.”

“i will!” a pause. “thank you, lydia.”

“anytime. day or night.” she swallows, bites her lip again. “i love you.”

“love you, too. night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is Late and confidence intervals are the Worst so have some of me projecting my statistics-related pain onto allison argent. thanks for reading.


	5. things you didn't say at all

in her dreams, cold faces peer out at her from underneath motel sheets, and death seeps out of every crevice, and she is screaming.

she wakes with a start. instinctively, she opens her mouth to make the night’s hauntings come in one part true – she is already drawing in the air she needs to let out a bloodcurdling shriek when she remembers where she is. it creeps back into her awareness, the body-warmed leather of the school bus seat beneath her, the stale air, the knee that knocks against her own _– allison_. she claps both of her hands over her mouth to stop herself, lets the breath she’s sucked in slowly exit through her nose. that’s it, lydia. breathe. you’re safe. don’t wake your friends.

her quick action has left scott and stiles to sleep in peace – she turns her head to see them across the way. scott leans against the window, serenely curled in on himself like a cat (ironic). his clothes are still damp, and the faint smell of gasoline still permeates the air. stiles slumps with his legs splayed, his head tilted back, quietly snoring. very attractive.

but as she feels the body beside her stirring she realizes she has not, by silencing herself in time, allowed all her friends to keep their slumbers. she turns back to see allison pushing herself up, her movements slow and languid, her eyes only just opening. she swallows, blinks, furrows her brow. “lydia?” she says, so quiet.

is her fear still apparent on her face – is the dim glow from the streetlights enough to illuminate it? “sorry,” she whispers. “i didn’t mean to wake you. go back to sleep.”

“are you okay?” her voice is thick and bleary.

“i’m fine.”

“you look upset.”

“it’s –” she glances out the windows, towards the flickering lights of the motel. “this place. we’re still too close to it. it’s getting into my head.”

“what – hallucinations?” allison questions. “like what scott and isaac and boyd were seeing?”

“no? i don’t know.” she sighs. “i don’t think so. it’s just a feeling.”

allison reaches to put a hand on lydia’s shoulder – encounters her hair first, and gently sweeps it to the side, and lydia shudders. “tell me what it feels like,” she says.

lydia bites her lip. “it’s –” god, she doesn’t know. she doesn’t know what’s happening to her. she can feel fear creeping back, a bitter taste in her mouth – like iron, like blood, like the way screaming tasted when she found the boy in the lifeguard’s chair, dark red running down his fingers and dripping to the ground. things were supposed to get back to normal now. this year was supposed to be better, a fresh start – she knows everything now, jackson has left, she is no longer plagued in her mind by a dead man. but instead death seems to have taken root in her, a sick souring creeping through her veins, turning her blood black. what is she becoming?

“i don’t know,” she says, and it comes out as a hollow, frightened whisper. “it’s – the same feeling i get right before i find dead bodies. it’s the way i felt when i heard that couple in the room next to ours. the ones that weren’t there. i don’t – i don’t know what it is.”

“hey.” allison is gentle, sympathetic, calm, sweet. she moves to loop her arm around lydia’s shoulders, pulls her close. lydia takes the blessing when it is offered, curling in against allison’s side, leaning to rest her head against her. she is soft and warm like summer, and lydia can feel her heartbeat, a reminder repeating on and on – constant and steady, she is here, she is alive, she is beautiful.

“when we get home,” she promises, “we’ll take a look at the bestiary. we’ll see if we can figure this out.”

“okay,” lydia mumbles.

“is there something else?” allison peers down to look at her face. “you still look…”

there is so much. there is so much burning unsaid inside her mouth. _i am so scared_ , she wants to say. _i am so scared of what is happening to this town, i am so scared of what is happening to me. i am so scared of losing friends, i am so scared of losing myself, i am so scared of losing you. i am so scared that stiles may be right, and all this could be me. i am so scared that you will not love me. i am so scared that maybe you should not love me._

she shakes her head instead.

allison leans into her, reaches up to tangle a hand in her hair. “we’ll figure this out,” she repeats. “try to get some sleep.”

lydia is already drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> team still fucking sad over motel california put your hands in the air


	6. things you said under the stars and in the grass

only the faintest traces of sunset colors still tint the horizon; what light shines down on them now is the moon, and that of the stars which have begun to appear, one by one, in the darkening sky. it is a dim twilight, but the lights from the lake house illuminate the lawn well enough that lydia feels no great pull to return to the indoors, not yet.

for an october evening, it’s warm; lydia lounges in her lawn chair with nothing but jean shorts over her swimsuit and she is quite comfortable. allison is still in only her swimsuit, still out in the water – she is sitting in the shallows, her chin lifted as she watches the last of the sunset disappear into the treeline. her hair has dried, and stirs slightly in the gentle wind. distantly, lydia can hear her humming.

they have come to spend a weekend here, together, just the two of them, to celebrate allison’s eighteenth birthday. the actual date had passed nearly two weeks ago, but a teacher work day this past friday and an excuse to get out of attending the lacrosse team’s annual halloween party made the last weekend of the month ideal. adulthood sits well on her bare shoulders – they are as strong, as confidently set as ever, and the moonlight glints off their pale expanse.

with concentrated effort lydia manages to drag her eyes back down to the book she holds in her lap. she had been reading, but has found it hard to focus.

allison’s humming stops abruptly; a moment later, the sound of water moving – quiet splashes as allison climbs to her feet, soft steps as she pads back across the lawn to lydia, a dull thud as she falls onto the ground beside her. lydia keeps her movements slow and controlled as she turns her head to the side to raise an eyebrow at her smiling friend, comfortably sprawled on her back in the grass.

“lydia,” she says happily, and lydia’s breath catches; she’s using that voice, the bright, happy tone that makes her sound like she has never been more delighted to see you. grinning, she pats the ground beside her.

she lifts both eyebrows now. “allison, i’m reading.”

“read later. come on.” she pats the ground again, more insistently. “the stars are coming out.”

“i can see them from here.”

“lydia.”

“i’ll get grass stains!”

allison groans, stretches out her arm – rolls onto her side so she can reach lydia’s hand, grasps it, and tugs.

“allison!”

“come on!” she’s laughing now, lightly, like music, and lydia relents.

“fine,” she says, tries to sound appropriately snippy; she marks her page and closes her book, sets it down in her chair once she’s standing. for show, she gives a short huff, swings her hair as she steps over allison, and carefully lies down in the grass beside her.

allison beams, and it is worth the risk of grass stains, just for that. “look,” she says; she takes lydia’s hand in one of hers, and the other she raises towards the sky, points into the blackness. “you can see pegasus.”

lydia squints. “where?”

“the – box thing. with legs. it looks more like an at-st.”

“oh. i see it.”

“yeah.” she scoots closer to her, lets her head loll to the side so that it rests on lydia’s shoulder. “i used to know all the october constellations. kate liked to take me out on camping trips for my birthday, when i was younger.”

she purses her lips. “kate who burned an entire family to death.”

allison is silent for a moment that stretches on, too long, and lydia shuts her eyes, bites down hard on her cheek. why did she say that? she was kate her aunt before she was kate the arsonist, it is not allison’s fault if she still remembers moments with her fondly, it is not allison’s fault if she misses her. she should respond with understanding, not with sarcasm. stupid. stupid. “i’m sorry.”

“it’s okay,” allison murmurs. she lets go of lydia’s hand – and for a second lydia hates herself, hates herself for ruining this moment, for pushing her further when she wants her closer, always, always, always wants her closer. but allison rolls onto her side to curl nearer to her, rests her head on lydia’s arm, drapes an arm over her torso. lydia’s throat is tight, it is hard to swallow, it is hard to breathe. she does not move her upper arm, lets allison use that as a pillow – but in a moment of insanity she bend it at the elbow, reaches back to brush her fingers through allison’s hair.

“what do you want to do tomorrow?” allison asks.

“tomorrow?” she echoes. it is all she can manage.

allison nods a little. “before we drive home.”

lydia takes a moment to think about it. “there’s a tattoo place not too far from here. you said you wanted to get one when you turned eighteen.”

allison pauses. “you remember that?”

“of course i remember,” she replies. _i remember everything you tell me_. “we could do that. if you want.”

allison hums in consideration. “i don’t know,” she says. “you want one, too, don’t you?”

oh – she did say that, didn’t she? when allison told her about the tattoo she’s planned, curling letters, words in french shaped into an arrow – she did say something about wanting something, once she’s eighteen, once she thinks of something worthy of etching into her skin. “yeah.”

“then let’s do it for your birthday.” she can feel allison’s cheek move against her arm – she is smiling. “we’ll get them together. we’ll come back up here in march, for your birthday.”

“allison, please.” she is amazed at how composed she sounds, how like herself, considering she stopped breathing at the sound of the word _together_ and has only just resumed. “we’re doing something much bigger than this for my eighteenth birthday.”

allison laughs. “okay. after that, then.”

lydia is quiet for a moment, and then, breathily, she agrees, “yeah. after that.”


	7. things you said while we were driving

lydia’s hands are ten-and-two on the steering wheel, cool and pale with nails freshly painted, a pale pink gloss that allison artfully applied for her as they sat cross-legged, facing one another in the back seat, touching at the knees. her foot depresses the gas pedal, urging the car forward into the night; her eyes are on the road, but it is dark enough outside and light enough in that allison’s reflection appears in the glass of the windshield, foggy and translucent but rich in all her colors and beauty. her legs are pulled up onto the passenger seat, tucked away at her side; her head is angled down as she reads, rests the book open on her lap. her hair hangs down on one side but she has pushed it back behind her ear on the other. she is very distracting.

this was her idea. let’s get in your car, she’d said, we have the weekend, let’s just go – drive as long and as far as we can, end up wherever we end up, we can be back in time for school on monday. we don’t have to tell anyone, let’s just get out of this place.

it ended up taking a little more planning, but not by much. they told lydia’s parents, allison’s mother, got permission and money for food. allison texted scott to let him know, just in case something horrifying and supernatural blew up while they were gone and he needed them back. scott has likely told stiles. their secret escapade is no secret, but it feels bold and thrilling all the same, driving through midnight with no destination and two sleeping bag stretched out next to one another in the trunk.

it feels good to be this far outside of beacon hills. it feels free. lydia wonders, absently, if allison felt this unburdened by the dangers and torments of that town during the trip she took over the summer, half a world away – or if it followed her, responsibility lurking in the corners of her mind. she wonders if it follows her now.

the thought drags her gaze to allison again. she seems peaceful enough, all soft colors and hazy curves in the unflatteringly yellow glow of the car’s overhead lights. she is unaware of her friend’s eyes on her, utterly caught in the pages of her book; as lydia watches she drags her lower lip inward, catches it between her teeth and holds it there.

a sudden rumbling jars lydia back to attention – she’s started to swerve, she’s hit the strip on the side of the road. she quickly turns her eyes front, rights herself. out of her peripheral vision she sees motion, dares a glimpse – allison has been yanked from her trance as well. she holds her page, looks up, glances from the road to lydia and back.

“are you getting tired?” she asks – concerned. “do we need to stop?”

lydia gives a soft _harrumph_. “allison, do you see a rest stop?” there is nothing in view but the desolate highway.

“we could start looking for one,” she offers. “here, i’ll look. you just drive.”

“allison, i’m fine,” she insists. “i’m not falling asleep.”

“you swerved.”

“not because i was falling asleep. i –” _i was distracted, i was looking at you – i was watching your lips as you bit down, would you let me do that for you_ –

a frown creases allison’s face. “what? lydia –”

“nothing,” she says quickly, and clears her throat. “um – do we still have that thing of iced coffee in the cooler?”

“unless it got up and walked away,” allison quips.

“can you grab it for me?”

allison nods, marks her page, closes her book, sets it down on the dash; unbuckling her seatbelt, she leans around into the backseat, reaching for the cooler on the floor. lydia keeps her eyes firmly, stubbornly on the road – she hears the cooler unzip, hears the sound of the thermos sliding free, and then allison is settling back into her seat and unscrewing the top and holding the half-full thermos of coffee out to her.

lydia repositions her right hand so she can steer with it alone, and reaches across with her left to take the thermos. she does not really need it, she is not drowsy, but she does not want to explain herself and she especially does not want to stop driving until they reach somewhere safer than a rest stop. this will satisfy allison, so she takes a sip – forces it down, takes another.

she passes the thermos back to allison, who caps it and returns it to the cooler. lydia expects her to take her book down from the dashboard and resume reading – but instead she reaches down to pull out the pillow she has stuffed in the space at her feet. turning in her seat so her back is to lydia, she places the pillow just behind the small of her back and leans on it, lets her head come to rest against lydia’s shoulder.

“allison,” lydia says, a bit sharp. “allison – what are you doing?”

“you’re not tired,” allison says. she’s closed her eyes. “i am.”

“allison, put your seatbelt back on.”

“m’okay.”

“it’s not safe.”

“i trust you.”

“i swerved.”

“you’re not tired.” she opens her eyes, turns her head just enough to flash a smirk up at lydia. “you won’t crash. i trust you.”

lydia is tense; her hands tighten on the wheel for a moment. she raises her shoulders, flares her fingers out, draws a stiff breath. “please put your seatbelt back on.”

allison grumbles something unintelligible – and then reaches to pull her seatbelt down and shove it unceremoniously into the buckle, without moving from her improper position.

“that’s still not safe.”

“it’ll be fine.” she hums softly. “wake me up when we get somewhere.”

“allison –”

“g’night, lydia.”

she huffs a soft sigh; allison is impossible to reason with when drowsiness takes hold of her. “goodnight,” she mumbles, and resolves herself not to let the feeling of this girl’s head resting on her distract her from the road. she pushes on, her foot on the gas, her best friend’s life placed with unreserved trust into her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> madi drops the ball, no one is surprised. sorry for the delay on this one. i'll try to get this back on an actual schedule.


End file.
